Particularly after a day like last week when the wind blew your skirt and lifted it up a little bit so that I almost fainted to see so much of your gorgeous womanly charms. I almost bit the stem of my old skeeter chaser in half. You remember that day don’t you, my Dear? I came down to supper late even though Mrs. Stellkamp rang the bell so hard I thought it would break. I said I had been napping, but I came down late because the vision of your lower limbs drove me to the solitude of my lonely room and I did it again, twice, and whispered Marie Marie. I was so ashamed but I swear to you that I couldn’t help it. And I thought how I would like to be pulling your clothes off gently to gaze my fill and feast my eyes on your womanly charms that I am driving myself crazy thinking about. I think how they must measure up against Janet’s, my ex. She was kind of “small” down there if you get what I am driving at?
Please again forgive me for this terrible letter but you can see by now I could never say these things to you face to face. Can you imagine me on the lawn or the porch telling you out of the blue and by the way, for instance, that my ex had a very small private organ. We would both die of shame and mortification. I am blushing just writing this all down.
But you see, I can jot down such a fact and avoid the mortification but still let you know what I must. And I can imagine your sweet face burning with blushes as you read it and maybe wonder how Tom rates with your ex when it comes to the length department. How I hope that you are or maybe will be in the future, thinking of me that way. I know that I think about you that way always and watch you when you stand and walk and cross your legs. I bet you did not know that I watched your every move ever since that day you got out of the car from Netcong. Even at Budd Lake and the Locks I watch you. And see the Real You underneath that bathing suit that you always wear. However I am not knocking your bathing suit. I love modesty in a woman.
That was one of the troubles with Janet. I don’t want to lay my troubles at your beautiful little feet but Janet was not at all modest, perhaps, it was the pure hot ginzo blood that ran through her veins. As a matter of fact, she got involved with my sister in law, Susan, who to look at her you would think was Miss Iceberg. Janet and Susan would like to have some unnatural fun together and one thing leading to another as it will, it was not too long before Yours Truly also got mixed up and we would have parties, if you get my drift? Believe me, my sweetest shyest violet, in such cases modesty does not exist, not an iota. I am so ashamed to write these filthy things to you because you are such a pure and clean lady to your marrow. But I have to come clean.
But no matter how dirty and shameful those things were that I was forced into doing by my dago wife and sister in law who, by the way if I remember right is also pure blooded Italian on both sides, I still kept a corner of myself clean and shining for the Miracle of somebody like You, who I knew would come along some day. Dear sweet Marie! And it is with that corner of me that I yearn to hold you close and naked. And yearn also to do it and do it and do it until we faint with exhaustion and happiness.
So if you think in your heart that there might be a chance that we can get together some time in the near future when prying eyes are closed or looking the other way, give me some kind of a sign, a Lover’s Sign. I am thrilled to write down those words. Maybe lift your skirts slightly so that only I can see for a sec your shapely limbs. Or cross your legs this way and that while you read a magazine. Or touch me with your little hand as I pass you by on the porch in the evening. Or chuck a hand full of sand at me playfully at Budd Lake while you smile. Darling. Whatever Sign you make I will know it. And I will act accordingly and we will be One.
In the meantime darling, while I wait, can you manage to slip me under the table, the expression goes, a keepsake of your feeling for me if you have same? I know that you have. Perhaps a small and intimate garment. You know what I mean? I am so nervous writing this because I know that you are pure and fine and I am afraid that such a request may shock you. A delicate hankie would be nice except, hankies remind me too much of Janet my ex, who used to make me do something very nerve wracking in my marital duty and a hankie was mixed up in it. I’ll tell you more about it later if you insist but for now let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, hankies still have a funny effect on me. So I would prefer something more intimate that has lived close to your sweet pure skin. Something that a gentleman does not mention. But a hankie would be swell if other items are embarrassing to you.
I wait for a Sign, my dearest,
Yours, Tom
~ ~ ~
I think that it is really a swell opportunity, a fine opportunity, for the two of us to get together over a glass of cold beer at the Bluebird on a quiet Sunday afternoon, and I say so. John McGrath agrees. We are both businessmen and despite the difference in age, God knows we understand each other. That is always the great thing about business, it brings you into contact with people of all types and breeds and from all walks of life and you get a chance to see a little of the world. Right? It is damn right.
Oh hell yes, the Depression, damn and double-damn the Depression, it has hurt business all across the board but if a fellow keeps his eyes open and his nose clean and isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty, hell, he’ll make out all right. I’m making more money now than I have in years! I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much, that could just mean that things are getting better all across the country. People beginning to talk a lot about defense contracts what with the European situation and all. Damned if you can make head or tail out of it.
The textile-factoring business, the whole credit game for that matter, goes along, day after day, come hell, high water, or Depression. Banking is banking whichever way you cut it. People always need somebody to stand behind them with the dollar when it comes to expansion and new materials and that sort of thing. It’s an interesting business, that’s all there is to it! Why, John has seen millionaires turn into paupers overnight. And vice versa! He tells me the wonderful story, wonderful, wonderful! about old Whitestone asking him to go into business with him, just the two of them, years ago, but how he preferred to work for a salary and not take all his headaches home.
By God though, they’re still friends! Families exchange cards at Christmas and every other damn thing. Oh, absolutely! A prince of a man, old Whitestone.
I know, of course, who Whitestone is? I don’t really know although certainly the name is a familiar one in business, a big name. A high mucky-muck all right. Well, old man Whitestone is just the President of the National Credit Office and you know what that is! There’s Dun and Brad and the National Credit and that’s it. A very very big man, but just as regular … A prince! Still good friends, yes indeedy.
I of course excuse John as he rises to go to the men’s room just as I order two more beers. When he returns they have been paid for and John shows surprise and protests that it is his round but I wave it off and John sits. As far as business goes, John goes on, he has to see it as looking a damn sight better but mainly, mainly, at least that’s what he surmises, because we damn well, yes indeed, damn well are getting ready to get into another goddamned war in Europe. God knows why! That’s your damn Jew Roosevelt.